On Amazon, the ‘Made in USA’ boom fizzles as price wins out
Back in the spring, “Made in USA” became one of Amazon’s hottest search terms. Anxiety around tariff-induced price hikes had shoppers punching in patriotic queries, giving online merchants hope that domestic manufacturing may give them a competitive edge.
But the momentum proved fleeting. New data from Momentum Commerce, a retail consultancy, shows that searches for “Made in America” products have since collapsed, reverting by July 2025 to nearly identical levels as the prior year. And even at their peak, those searches barely translated into sales.
According to Momentum Commerce’s analysis, April and May 2025 saw search volume for “Made in USA” and related terms double compared to the prior summer, topping 1.7 million monthly queries. Yet the corresponding share of top-selling products with U.S. origin claims in their titles never rose above 1.5%.
During two weeks in April, the share of “Made in USA” products in Amazon’s top 100 category bestsellers ticked up to about 1.4% before falling back below 1%.
“There was a surge in interest. There was a slight surge in purchases, but that was very short-lived in both respects,” Andrew Waber, director of market research at Momentum Commerce, told Modern Retail in an interview. The sales bump lasted only a matter of weeks, and shoppers quickly reverted to cheaper alternatives, he added.
Value over origin
That pattern underscores a broader trend: U.S. consumers are becoming more value-oriented and less motivated by country-of-origin cues.
Momentum Commerce found that average selling prices on Amazon’s weekly top 1,000 bestsellers have consistently declined since April, with search activity increasingly shifting toward household staples and grocery items. “Consumers are generally searching more often on Amazon for more household, essential-type goods,” Waber said. “People are obviously searching for value.”
A new consumer survey from The Conference Board reinforces the point. Based on polling of 3,000 U.S. adults, the share of consumers who said “Made in USA” made them more likely to buy a product fell 18% since 2022.
For sellers, the collapse of the “Made in America” wave is a warning against over-investing in patriotism as a marketing hook. Earlier this year, many brands rushed to update their Amazon listings with American flags, tariff-free claims or even “Not Made in China” tags.
Momentum Commerce’s findings suggest those bets haven’t paid off. “Sales trends show that brands can’t rely on trumpeting domestic origins as a meaningful way to drive sales volume,” the firm wrote in a report published Aug. 18.
Instead, sellers should emphasize price competitiveness, discounts and availability, Waber said. “The idea of the country of origin of a product being a really big determining factor in how people are spending their money — we just don’t see a big degree of evidence of that, at least at large scale,” he said.
The fading U.S. trend may even be spilling into Canada. Many of Momentum’s clients are seeing Canadian Amazon growth lag behind their U.S. business, sometimes turning negative. Waber pointed to growing Canadian dissatisfaction with U.S. foreign policy, which has spurred some Canadian consumers to shun American products, as Modern Retail previously reported.
That’s the case for Greg Shugar, who runs Beau Ties of Vermont, a Vermont-based company that makes woven silk jacquard neckwear and accessories and sells them through both direct-to-consumer and wholesale channels, including Amazon.com. He recently had a longtime Canadian customer reject a $192 CAD order due to a $68 duty that was tacked on. Meanwhile, another customer told Shugar he would no longer be buying from him, citing political reasons. The company’s Canadian sales have dropped from 8% of its total business to less than 1%.
While “Made in USA” marketing may resonate with some U.S. shoppers, they could alienate Canadian consumers, forcing American sellers to rethink how they position themselves in Canada. “Especially if you’re operating in a space with Canadian competitors, you very well should consider, like, ‘Hey, maybe we want to kind of soft-pedal any kind of U.S. origins here,’” Waber said.
Despite a burst of interest in “Made in America” goods, Amazon shoppers in the U.S. by and large remain driven by price and convenience rather than country-of-origin concerns. For Amazon sellers, the challenge now is navigating a consumer base that’s more deal-driven than ever. Indeed, Amazon shoppers flocked to essentials during the company’s annual Prime Day sale, using the event to stock up on everyday basics like protein shakes, dish soap and paper plates, according to Numerator.
During Amazon’s quarterly earnings, CEO Andy Jassy said tariffs haven’t yet caused “diminishing demand” or “meaningful” price hikes. But he cautioned that the picture could shift once pre-tariff inventory runs out.
As such, sellers may want to reallocate budgets toward discounts, testing new price points and treating “Made in USA” less as a sales driver and more as a secondary differentiator.
As Waber put it, “Consumers may have had a fleeting interest in, ‘Oh, hey, I want to check out what American-made products are out there.’ But maybe when they found out those products weren’t especially price competitive, they just went with the product they were originally going to buy anyway.”